Basically The True Book About Space Travel was published in 1954 in London and sometime later that year they decided to make an American edition called : The Prentice-Hall Book About Space Travel. It was published in 1955. What I find fascinating is not only how the text was changed to make it more "American" but many of the illustrations were redrawn by Henry Billings. I thought it would interesting (entertaining?) to compare the original art for The True Book about Space Travel Illustrated by Gerald Quinn with the redrawn art by Henry Billings. For similar subjects they took different approaches.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Sparky the Space Chimp was a 1967 Australian book used in school, it was also reprinted in 1975 (below).

As you can see it was intended as "interesting reading" for children practicing their reading skills. The actual era of using chimps for space flight was very short but they persisted in school books. I think this may have been becasue the actual events were moving too fast for a book about the manned programs not to be quickly out of date.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

This is my attempt to display one of my favorite pop-up books by photographing it. When it is flat it seems just a spiral bound book, but when you open it it becomes a space station! Here is a view of it from the top:

When the book is opened you see the different rooms of the space station.

That is not a space rock in the station, just a colorful weight I used to hold it still. This is the Decompression-Refueling station.

The book folds out/pops up into a 4 room space station, each section of the station is heavily labeled with all controls and hatches indicated. Rooms include: Decompression-Refueling station, Control-Communications Center, Recreation Station and Life Support Center.

First up is the Control-Communications Center.

Comes with 3 additional punch-out pages: 1 instructions, 1 with space capsule, 1 with astronauts and equipment. There is also 1 page of text on the back cover about space stations and conditions in space.

This is the Life Support Center.

And finally the Recreation Area, with plenty of storage. Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

I am honored by your clicks and want to provide a rebutal to the "League Of People Who Like To Download Large Images To Their Swipefile (LOPWLTDLITTS, or Lopwiltidlit, for short). "

While some images are small, most will enlarge to a much more satisfying size if you click on them. Try it below:

This looks small but if you click, it is a giant downloadable image!

That is the cool Australian version of this 1956 American board game:

This is part of the ephemera part of my blog. I love all this cool space stuff for kids from the 1950s and 1960s. Especially if it was part of the "future to come". I have had a family illness for the past few months but I am resuming blogging regularly so check back if you can.

Here is the board for the game and the instructions so you can play at home. remember to click on the image.